


Snow Madness

by Jade_Masquerade



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Sharing a Bed, Snowed In
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-03-01 09:58:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18798061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jade_Masquerade/pseuds/Jade_Masquerade
Summary: When endless snows keep him from leading his men south to join Daenerys’s war in King’s Landing and Winterfell fills with those seeking shelter, Jon is forced to share a room with his siblings. And then just Sansa. And then Sansa’s bed.





	Snow Madness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kingsnow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kingsnow/gifts).



> Based on [kingsnow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bravegentlestrong/pseuds/kingsnow)'s dream of the Starks' storyline ending with Winterfell being snowed in

When Jon glanced up, he found himself right back where he started, though he wouldn’t have known it if he hadn’t paid acute attention to each building he passed as he paced around Winterfell’s courtyard. The path he’d shoveled and his footprints were already covered again, buried by this infernal snow that had started a fortnight ago and hardly let up since. 

It began the day after Daenerys departed for King’s Landing on the back of her dragon. Jon was meant to follow on foot with her remaining men and those Winterfell could spare after a few days to rest and resupply, intending to repay the favor of saving the North by helping her take the Iron Throne from Cersei. Soon, though, it had become clear that would not be happening. The snow started innocuously with a few flakes drifting down from the grey sky, and then it steadily increased in intensity until it fell in blankets thick enough to hobble the horses they needed to ride south and piled high enough against the walls of Winterfell that a man could practically drown in it. 

He’d thought that destroying the White Walkers would be the end of it, that that alone would spell the end of winter and usher in spring.

He’d thought wrong. 

Instead it seemed that had only angered the old gods, that they sought to punish the living, that they unleashed their fury now through wave after wave of snow. The true enemy might have been gone, but winter’s revenge posed another threat altogether. It was as if it had been too cold before for the snow to fall, and now that the deep freeze had thawed, the skies saw fit to release it all at once. 

The color had gone out of the world, the red leaves of the weirwood tree obscured, its pale branches weighed down by snow, the few bursts of green that had survived winter, pines and evergreens and moss and grass, now swathed in white, the blue sky shrouded in grey, concealed by clouds and swirling snowflakes. Sometimes the snow fell in bands so dense it was difficult to tell whether it was day or night, or whether the sun still rose at all. 

Not even a raven could find its way out of the rookery in a storm like this, and the kingsroad had been covered over, making it more than treacherous and close to impossible to travel. Winterfell once more became the place to wait out the storm, the warmth of the springs that ran through its walls serving as their lifeline. 

Once not that long ago Jon would have been grateful for any reason to avoid going south—settling a dispute between feuding lords, presiding over a dull affair like a wedding as an honored guest, even riding north to fortify the abandoned castles along the Wall. But that had been before, before he’d left for Dragonstone, before he returned with Daenerys, before Bran and Sam told him of his true parentage and all that came with it. 

Before Sansa had all but entirely stopped speaking to him. 

He’d made his peace with Arya and Bran after they’d spoken of his intention to depart for King’s Landing, but Sansa remained frosty. Worst of all, he could not blame her. 

He’d left to go south and not listened to her, after all, when she’d had the right of Tyrion’s deceit and Daenerys’s character all along, and then he’d been forced to bring those dangers right to their doorstep. In some ways he supposed maybe nothing had changed from when they were younger, when Sansa went about her business in the keep and he his outside of it, without so much as a word needing to be exchanged between them. 

But he knew he hadn’t imagined how Sansa had embraced him upon their reunion at Castle Black, as though he meant the world to her, or the way Sansa had smiled when he donned the cloak she’d sewn him, and how she had stood beside him as they took back the North, regal and beautiful as any true queen. 

He knew things had changed between them since they were children. How exactly they had changed, though, he was less certain, but perhaps that didn’t matter. All that mattered was how somewhere between late nights spent before the fireplace in the lord’s chambers, talking strategy and family and more, during walks to visit the godswood and feel a peace there it seemed only each other understood, over shared ale and feasts, whispers and knowing glances… they had shifted. 

Each recollection stoked the fire within him now, even as the cold winds blew and the snow began its relentless lashing again. He found he didn’t mind it so much anymore, that the cold out here served as a refuge, soothing him, distracting him. Sometimes he was surprised the snow didn’t all just melt away as he touched it, so filled was he with frustration and disappointment, fury and desire. _Mostly desire_ , he could admit to himself out here, all alone. 

Even out here he was reminded of her, the snow cold and beautiful, just like the mask she wore for him now. The snow and stone was vastly preferable to the look of disappointment in Sansa’s eyes, the tight, perfunctory smiles devoid of any joy she offered him whenever courtesy compelled her, the nods and gestures she used to communicate as far as they would suffice. He would be angry too, if she had given away their home, brought their adversaries into it, and announced after all they had sacrificed that honor required her to head south again. He was angry, angry with himself, and it made him angrier each time he saw it reflected back at him, writ across her face. 

At least Sansa did not have this sin bubbling inside of her, this sin that made it hell to share chambers with her and Arya and Bran at the present, with every available space in Winterfell filled by those seeking shelter from the storms. _Targaryen blood,_ he’d thought once he knew what raged inside of him, and that knowledge had helped to alleviate the shame for a time. But once he returned from a battle he’d never been meant to survive, once these bloody snows began, once he was forced into her chambers and his pallet was crammed in alongside the wall across from her bed, this lust made him burn in a way that not even blood could explain away. 

It was a distinct kind of madness with which he was certain he in particular had been cursed, an unwelcome gift from the Red Witch, perhaps, a lingering effect of his resurrection, or imposed on him by the gods of old Valyria, the price he paid for commandeering a dragon. 

_Snow madness,_ he thought with a grimace, watching as the stone walls around him vanished and the world turned white again. 

 

 

He didn’t know how the chambers they shared could both be frigid and stifling all at once. 

Bran sat in front of the fire, alternating between using his sight and staring into its flames. Of all the people in Winterfell, Bran was not much company, but Jon preferred him all the same, not minding his quiet companionship compared to the raucous chatter of their many, many guests that filled the rest of the keep. He couldn’t blame his brother for taking himself elsewhere while they were stuck here, even if Bran refused to use his vision to help them see what went on in the world beyond the snows, or at least seek reassurance that they would soon come to an end. Jon had given up asking, Bran claiming each time his greensight was weaker now, with the White Walkers gone, the dragons dead or afar, and his visits to the heart tree limited to once a day whenever they experienced a momentary break from the snow. 

Arya stretched out on the floor in front of the fire, toying with Littlefinger’s dagger. She flipped it from hand to hand, the blade whirring through the air the way it had when he’d watched her kill a hundred wights or more as they had flooded their home and then the Night King himself. He’d seen her in brief blurs during the battle before she delivered that fatal blow, dragonglass in hand and Needle at her side as a last defense, and even in moments when he should have felt a thousand other things—dread, horror, terror—only his pride in her burned fierce within him, drove him on whenever he questioned whether he could manage to raise his sword again one more time, one more time, just once more. 

Well, perhaps that and something else, something niggling that had since grown all-consuming in the void left by their fight against the dead and now by the snow-imposed isolation from anything that laid beyond the walls of Winterfell. _Or someone else, rather,_ he thought. 

Sansa sat in the corner atop her bed, knitting yet more gloves, hats, and scarves for Daenerys’s men who had come north woefully unprepared for winter. She was a gracious hostess for all of their guests, no matter where they hailed from, opening their doors to anyone who sought refuge beneath their roof and keeping the kitchens busy by calling for hot meals to always be available in the Great Hall to each and all they sheltered. Sansa had stockpiled plenty of food in his absence, though she’d presented their supplies as meager while Daenerys had been here. 

He certainly understood that. Everyone had heard the tale of what had befallen the Reach, and even if her dragons had remained in check, one of them could have eaten an entire room’s worth of rations in an afternoon that could feed the inhabitants of Winterfell for weeks, or worse yet, consumed the animals themselves that had become their lifelines in these times, the sheep and goats and cattle all gathered into the stables and outbuildings. Sansa kept their fires blazing and invited all to sit at their hearths, the grates continuously replenished from the wood amassed in their stores, hoarded there in case they had needed it to fuel massive fires during the battle against the dead… or after, if things ended up not going their way.

Normally Jon would have distracted himself by threading his fingers through Ghost’s fur, but his direwolf had run off into the wolfswood when the snows began. He thought it better this way; these cramped chambers were no place for him, not when the wild ran through his veins. He couldn’t imagine where he would sleep in any case, his own pallet scarcely enough space for his own comfort. Still, he couldn’t help but wonder if Ghost was all right, if he could sustain himself out there on his own in these conditions. 

Desperate to divert his attention from those worries, he allowed himself a glance at Sansa now, as she finished and set aside another small glove. There was little motivation to maintain appearances anymore with more pressing matters at hand and few opportunities to do so. Most of the castle was pale and haggard, worn by winter and war, and Jon himself could hardly remember the last time he bothered to comb his hair or trim his beard, yet Sansa continued to look as radiant as ever. Tonight her hair laid over her shoulder, braided into a simple northern style by her own hand; there were no others to spare in a time like this, not even for the Lady of Winterfell. He watched from afar whenever he had a chance to see her bask in her element, noticing how her cheeks colored when she laughed with the smallfolk, the way her eyes lit up when she read her favorite stories to their children, the smiles she proffered when conversing with the Dothraki and the Unsullied in the Common Tongue and asking them to teach her bits of each of their languages in return. 

This was what Sansa was made to do, Jon knew. Seeing her shine in that role was the only way he knew the happiness she’d found since they returned to Winterfell had not fled. Sansa held hope even when their people began to despair, telling those who followed House Mormont they would simply hibernate here til spring like the bear of the sigil they looked up to, or that they would thrive in winter as northmen had for thousands of years, just like the strong pines and sentinels of House Mollen and House Tallhart. Even if Jon was no longer the recipient of her laughs and smiles and stories as he’d been fortunate enough to once, so be it if it meant those who’d known so little kindness and so much suffering benefitted in his stead. 

Their first nights all together in here in the lord’s chambers were tolerable, exciting even, each of them content to have this small bit of joy to share after so much loss. They stayed up late into the evening just like when they were children, laughing and whispering and sharing stories, except now a flagon of ale or wine sat in between them. Now, though, they were silent more often than not, and only Sansa made any sound, humming as she worked. He should take up a hobby, he supposed, something to keep his idle hands busy, so his mind didn’t wander and return to its usual destination, ruminating over how his empty palms itched with want, how Sansa’s hair could flow between his fingers or how perfectly his hands could span the space between her hips… 

But Sansa would never want him like that, not anymore even if there’d been a glimmer of hope once. There were so many things he wished he could tell her, how he never should have left, how he should have apologized, how their family meant more to him than anyone else, and then there were those he knew he never could, about how the way he felt had changed, or maybe it had never really been right from the start. 

That had become ever more clear when he returned. Seeing Bran and Arya again had been nothing like reuniting with Sansa. They were different too, but he could still spar and ride with Arya and share stories, albeit of a different kind, with Bran. With Sansa, though… He felt ungrateful wishing for more when they’d begun with precious little in the first place, and then he’d laid waste even to that. Yet how could he ask for things to return to how they’d been when Sansa had never been his sister, in practice nor truth? 

He would have groaned if it wouldn’t have drawn her attention, a polite question about his well-being, maybe even her eyebrows furrowed in hollow concern. It wasn’t worth it, to interrupt her when she seemed in a pleasant mood, her humming simultaneously soothing and sparking something within him. Sometimes she sang familiar songs they’d grown up with, other times tunes he’d never heard, from the south or the Vale or her own compositions. He couldn’t place this one, not that he was the type to sing along anyway, not like the harp-playing dandies that Sansa dreamed of as a girl. Even if he were, it wouldn’t be much help. There weren’t songs about the way he felt for Sansa, not ones fit for any lady’s ears anyway. 

Soon the fire began to die, and Arya helped Bran to his bed before tucking into her own. Sansa followed, and he snuffed out the candles as he turned in. He laid awake while the rest of them drifted off to sleep, picturing her sprawled not more than three paces from him, how her red hair fanned across her pillow and her shift clung to the curves of her body. He wondered if she embroidered _all_ of her clothes with such detailed designs as he’d seen her sew onto her dresses, winter roses and wolf bits… _No. Stop._

Sansa would have him thrown out into the snow to sleep in the broken tower if she knew of his depraved mind. If he could train out in the courtyard, that would help tire his body in a way only the swinging of swords could, the routine of it helping to ease his mind from these burdens. 

But there was only shoveling, and more shoveling, and his demons to contend with again come morning. 

 

 

After a few days passed, the snow grew too deep for Bran to make his daily trips out to the godswood in his rolling chair anymore, then too thick for anyone at all, except for Jon. He pressed on, insistently clearing the same paths over and over and over again, even if few others bothered to venture out anymore. Callouses from his swordsmanship faded, replaced by those from his shovel, and only when his hands throbbed and burned from the cold and his exertions would he return in. 

Inside was worse. He grew bored, restless with little to do. He didn’t know how to sew like Sansa, or weld like Gendry. On rare occasions he and Arya found enough space to practice swords, but soon even that disappeared as more and more men, women, and children from the wintertown sought refuge in the keep, their own tents and shacks collapsed by the weight of the snow. Cupboards, closets, storerooms, any spare areas that could be found were all cleared to house their guests, and beds stuffed with straw or evergreens or scraps of fur and wool were laid down over every vacant stretch of stone, the tables of the Great Hall arranged so those who inhabited its walls could lay both beneath and atop their surfaces. 

Sam spent his days reading and invited Jon to do the same, but books held little interest for him anymore. There were no answers in the pages of ancient texts for the problems that plagued him, no words of wisdom for how to atone for abandoning his family or how to scourge his mind of its depravity,   
no magic spells or prayers to the gods that would bring along spring. Jon never thought he’d wish for the presence of the Red Woman, but she had vanished into thin air after the battle’s conclusion. Maybe, even if it cost another bit of his sanity, it would have been worth it if Melisandre would have known some way to melt this snow, to end this darkness. 

Among those from wintertown and the northern holdfasts mingled a strange mix of bedfellows, free folk and Dothraki tossing dice together and trading an odd assortment of weaponry, bells, and other baubles, raucous games of cyvasse played between Unsullied and the men from the Vale. Slowly it became more difficult to tell one group apart from the others as the women shared their styles with one another, swapping dresses and twisting and braiding their hair into the fashions of every kind of realm, while the men grew out their hair and beards to insulate themselves from the cold, mirroring true northmen more with each passing day as they draped themselves in furs and boiled leather. Some of them were even clad in his own spare clothing which he’d given away in a fit of stupidity after Sansa had fretted over whether or not they had enough for all and calculated how long it would take her to craft plenty, and he’d told her to take some of his instead, claiming he wouldn’t need thick tunics and woolen breeches when he went south anyway.

The games filled their time by day, and by night laughter and music filled the halls. None of them seemed too concerned by the unending snows. Surely the free folk had seen worse beyond the Wall, and maybe to the rest this was simply the nature of winter, an inconvenient but ordinary occurrence in the North. They had good reason not to worry, he supposed. Even if Daenerys were to fly north, he doubted she could find them through the thicket of clouds and snow anyway. 

For Jon, everywhere he went was too warm, every space cramped with bodies and furs, fires burning in every grate and hearty stews to stretch their stores served at every supper. At least no one was at risk of freezing to death, he told himself, but there was no bloody privacy anywhere, not to think, not to brood, not to escape from Sansa and certainly not to entertain other kinds of thoughts. Whenever he was driven inside, with nothing to do but sit and wait for this round of snow to end, if it ever did, he walked alone under the guise of inspecting the castle and keeping himself fit, but really he sought the solace of solitude and the freedom to think somewhere his mind didn’t whir with questions of what Sansa’s lips would feel like against his, or how she would look flushed with the same kind of want that boiled inside him, or how he wouldn’t mind burning with heat if it were Sansa he shared it with, her legs wrapped around his waist and her hands on his back to hold him close. 

Instead Jon made himself think about how life surely went on elsewhere beyond the stone walls that closed them in and protected them, in places not touched by winter where surely people did not worry whether they’d see the blue of the sky ever again or spend their days pining for their sisters-turned-cousins. He wondered what they thought, if anyone had attempted to go north to see what had become of them, and hoped as much that they had not, knowing what certain fate they would meet. No, it would have been better for them to simply cut their losses; he knew most southerners would only be too happy to be rid of the north and its vast stretches of land and ice.

Further south Daenerys had certainly found enough to entertain herself in King’s Landing, sitting on the throne she so desperately desired, holding court, bending the capital’s inhabitants to her will, restoring her family legacy. She would not miss him. He knew her lover from Essos still lived somewhere; perhaps he had crossed the Narrow Sea with the rest of the Golden Company and they would reconcile, and he could give her the things he never had been able to—true happiness, his heart, the truth. 

His walks were always cut short. Inevitably he would be interrupted by someone seeking casual conversation or his hiding place would be stumbled upon by someone who’d taken a wrong turn or someone otherwise well-meaning, thinking they could help lift his spirits with their words and kindnesses. He appreciated them, truly, but they were never the one person he wished for. 

It was after one such walk that he returned to their chambers and found Arya there, packing her things. She claimed it was warmer in the forge than anywhere else and she didn’t mind the sounds of metal striking or the hardness of the ground, but Jon knew better. And then the next day, when he came back from one of his rounds of shoveling sopping wet and covered in melted snow, Bran had gone too. 

 

 

Melisandre had always spoken of how the night was dark and full of terrors, but Jon had brushed off her words then. He’d spent many a night atop the Wall, many nights in the haunted forest beyond it, and in tents and caves and conditions worse than that, yet they had never bothered him before. 

That was before he’d had to suffer the torture of sitting for hours alone in a room with Sansa, though. 

He used to crave these moments, when at the end of a long, trying day full of efforts to win back the North and then dealing with the matters of running a kingdom, it would at last be only them, no bannermen to impress, no complaints to be heard, no ogling over the King in the North and the Lady of Winterfell aimed their way. There they could freely discuss and strategize, dream and wonder, laugh and tease, bicker and forgive. 

He tried to tell himself it would be fine without Arya and Bran, that it would be just like when they’d been at Castle Black, sharing his chambers away from the other men more often than not, or when they’d first come home and he often dozed off in front of the fire during their late nights talking before rising to return to his own at some ungodly hour. 

This wasn’t the same, though. The feelings that had been a mere flicker then were now ablaze, consuming him from the inside out. 

And Sansa… Now there was none of that fire, no arguing or bantering, only cool civility. He would have taken her scorn, her criticisms, her ire if it meant he’d had a moment of her attention at all. When had he grown this forlorn, this desperate for her? 

Just when his brain began to search for that impossible point in a way no one else but Bran probably could relate to, he heard her call his name. 

“You know there’s no sense in brooding while you’re stuck here,” Sansa said, her voice crisp and clear, cutting through the thick air of the room. “She won’t know whether you’re allowing yourself to be happy or not.” 

He ignored the second part; he didn’t know how to admit that he’d barely thought about Daenerys in weeks now. “I’m not _brooding._ ” 

“You are,” she said, that smile he loved beginning to play on her lips. He furrowed his brow even further in the hopes she would brighten even more, and she did. “I’ve seen it a hundred times. When we took back Winterfell, and you stood up there on the ramparts waiting to offer me the lord’s chambers? Brooding. When Lyanna Mormont questioned your titles? Brooding. Even when Arya stood you up for swords yesterday? Brooding.” 

“You would too, if you felt yourself going to rot,” he muttered, his voice gravelly from misuse and a hundred other reasons in that moment. 

Sansa’s eyes scanned over him almost imperceptibly, but he felt their assessment of him all the same. “You seem to be doing all right.” 

“From what you can see, maybe,” he said. Gods, why had he said a thing like that? Did he mean for her to see? _Had_ she seen? After all, he didn’t wear much to bed at night, and as quick as he tried to change before he left in the dim light of the morning or when he returned from his turns shoveling outside, their chambers offered limited space, as he was still all too aware of each night he laid across from her. 

“Well, that’s easy to fix,” she said, a pretty blush coloring her cheeks. He wondered if she burned as he did in this suffocating room. He felt the shift in his traitorous body happen instantaneously even before she spoke again, hoping, wishing for things to be offered which he didn’t deserve. “There’s plenty to be done for which I could use the assistance of an able-bodied man.” 

He doubted there was much Sansa couldn’t manage to do herself, but a sigh rushed out of him in relief all the same. “All right.” 

So in brief respites from shoveling, whenever the sky filled again with snow, he stood by Sansa’s side as she distributed blankets to the smallfolk that gathered in their halls, dragged pails of stew from the kitchens to the Great Hall and back again, and stuffed mattresses full of straw, arranging them and rearranging them in room after room as Winterfell’s population seemed to swell with each passing day. He might not have had Sansa’s effusive charm or her way with words or her proficiency with needle and thread, but he could carry, lift, and lug, and as he watched her smile, his own became more of a permanent fixture. 

It was better off this way anyhow, he told himself. He’d noticed an increasing number of eyes following Sansa as she made her rounds, lingering on more than her kind smiles or the bread she handed out. The castle became more restless by the day; just yesterday he’d stumbled upon a kitchen maid and one of the Dothraki hidden in a closet whose door he pulled open while searching for extra furs, and at night the alcoves and any hideaways filled with couples sneaking away for some privacy. He supposed he should be glad they seemed to tend towards fucking and not fighting, but it still made him weary, especially whenever a man of the free folk commented on the beauty of Sansa’s hair or some knight from the Vale sank to a knee to kiss her hand in thanks.

One dark morning during a break in the snows, he accompanied Sansa out to the storehouses to take inventory before he hauled the hay to the stables and the firewood to the keep. He’d shoveled the path only the evening before, but a fresh layer formed atop the well-trodden way overnight, making it particularly slick. 

Sansa walked in front of him, ledgers in arm, snow piled waist-high on either side of them. The wind stole her voice from him so he caught only every other word, about grain and headcounts and dates of expiration, all things that helped cool his blood whenever he was in Sansa’s presence, until her squeal snapped him to his senses as she slipped, her heeled boots skidding across the hidden ice. 

Jon reached out and righted her before she fell. 

“I promised once, didn’t I?” he said, his voice dropping to that deep, rumbling register. It must have been the cold straining it, he told himself, even when he knew better. “To protect you.” 

“You did,” she said, her eyes flitting from his eyes to his lips to where her free hand braced against his chest. “But you don’t have to…” 

She pushed away from him and took another step, her boots again sliding out from beneath her. 

This time he swept her up into his arms; it was either that or putting his hands where he didn’t dare for more reasons than simply incurring Sansa’s wrath. 

“Jon, you’re being silly,” she said, squirming as he only held her tighter. “I’m perfectly capable on my own.” 

“Are you?” he smirked. “My recent experience tells me otherwise.”

She slapped his chest in mock outrage. Her touch seemed to burn even through wool and leather. “Excuse me, but I happen to remember creating these stores on my own, clothing men, women, and children on my own, fortifying this castle on my own…” 

She continued on, and yet she allowed him to carry her the rest of the way to the storehouse all the same. 

Their business there was short, lingering just long enough to count their remaining supplies and identify which hay ought to be moved to the stables to be consumed first before it turned. 

“I’ll move these while it’s still clear,” he said, aware of Sansa’s eyes on his back as he hoisted some of the bales nearest to the door. “Some of the free folk ought to be able to help—they’re the only ones who’ll have a chance at making it through this s—”

His words cut off with a hiss as he felt icy fingers graze the back of his neck and snow trickling down his spine. Once not long ago he would have feared death had come to reclaim him at last, but those days had gone. 

He turned to see Sansa instead, her face scrunched with suppressed giggles and a telltale dusting of snow covering the fingers of her gloves. 

“I thought that might help since you’re always grumbling about how warm it is in our chambers,” she said, having the audacity to innocently blink at him. 

He grinned and bent to scoop a handful of snow from where it filtered in beneath the doorway. “Oh, is that right?” 

Before he could straighten, the next snowball hit him square in the face. Sansa shrieked as he tossed his at her, ducking behind hay, then wood, then a stone column as he chased her, always eluding his grasp until he cornered her beneath a window nearly blocked by snow. 

He could have kissed her then as he backed her against the stone wall, her eyes wide and her breath coming quick, but the skies opened again, and he reluctantly suggested they return lest they be stuck out in the cold, even as a traitorous part of his mind told him the prospect might not be so bad. 

That night he was still thinking of that lost moment, of how pretty she looked with snowflakes melting in her hair after she’d laughed herself breathless, of how much she’d reminded him of the Sansa of old who’d challenged and encouraged him, who’d been his closest ally and confidante, who’d given him a purpose again, when he returned from his evening shoveling to find his pallet had disappeared. 

 

 

Jon could have sworn he was going mad before, but now he was certain of it as he stood in the doorway and stared wordlessly at the new arrangement of their chambers and the space where his pallet once sat across the way from Sansa’s bed. 

When he finally stammered out enough words to demand to know the whereabouts of his pallet, Sansa simply shrugged. 

“Lady Missandei said one of her men caught a chill and sleeping on the floor hasn’t been doing him any favors,” she said. “No matter. My bed is enough for two, and there’s no sense in wasting perfectly good space.” 

It was all very practical, yes, but practicalities were not something he possessed when it came to matters regarding Sansa. He couldn’t very well tell her that same exact thought had occupied his mind more often than not as he spent nights turning on his pallet while she laid an arm’s reach away. It had been a simple, uncomfortable thing, nothing fancy, but it was his, a defense against his weakness, a shield for his shameful secret. 

And now every last one of those protections was gone. 

“You could have _told_ me,” he said. 

Sansa’s eyes narrowed and her nostrils flared, and he saw the little bit of the fragile relationship they had rebuilt fracturing right before his eyes. “Like you told me about bending the knee? About surrendering the North? Our _home_?” 

Suddenly this conversation seemed all too familiar, the irony cutting him hot and deep. What were some wooden planks and a couple of furs when he’d given away his title, a whole kingdom, their freedom? “Sansa, I… You know why. She wouldn’t have accepted any less.” 

“And yet you agree to go again.” Her bottom lip trembled. “You agreed to leave.” 

He closed his eyes and breathed deep before he opened them again. “I intended to keep my word. What would you have had me do?” 

“Would it have mattered what I thought?” 

He wanted to say of course it would have, that her counsel was sounder than anyone else’s he knew, that she alone had known the truth about Cersei and the Golden Company and all of it, but the moment the Night King had shattered and Daenerys had said, “Your war is won,” he had known his fate. 

“There was no other choice.” 

“Right,” she said, her voice steeling again. “Only these snows stopped you.” 

“Aye, these cursed snows,” he said. If he’d been a better man, perhaps he would have told her it had been the honorable thing to do, to keep his word. If he was wiser, he could have made an attempt at playing the game, he could have reasoned and rationalized why winning Daenerys the Iron Throne would have been advantageous to the North. If he were honest, he would have admitted the truth: that he doubted whether he would have been able to ride out of those gates again if she’d looked at him the way she did now, that he would never break the promises he’d made to her, that it tore his heart to think she believed he loved another. 

But no, he was as cursed as these bloody snows. Winter had been trying to kill him all along, a southern-born child, a bastard in all but truth who never belonged no matter the color of his eyes or how dark his hair. Perhaps this time it would succeed, its attempt to drown him taking along the rest of the North. 

“We’re all cursed,” Sansa said, seeming to read his mind. She turned away and slipped into her side of the bed. 

_Their_ bed, he reminded himself. After all that they had shared, it had never come to this before. Maybe winter didn’t intend to drown him, but rather draw out the suffering, slowly smothering him as he roasted here in this room beside Sansa. 

Always too hot, he stripped off his shirt before hastily pulling it back on again when he realized how he would feel laying that close to Sansa with skin and scars exposed. He considered the stone floor instead; it would be cold, yet would it be so different from laying beside Sansa, who would be stone enough anyway? 

He gritted his teeth and slipped beneath the furs, willing for sleep to take him into its peaceful abyss as he stared up at the stone ceiling. Perhaps Sansa had not intended for this at all. Perhaps she’d meant for him to leave altogether, and all this time she had been too polite to ask, and he was too stupid to take the hint. _I truly know nothing._

He thought of where else he could go, but each idea held less appeal than the last: to the Great Hall where eyes and whispers about the former King in the North followed him wherever he sat and whatever he did, to the chambers Sam and Gilly and little Sam had claimed as their own, to the forge with Gendry and Arya. If he risked sleeping alongside the wildlings, he knew he’d wake up to Tormund roaring with laughter, missing half his hair and nothing else if he were lucky. 

He felt Sansa shift beside him, turning over and sighing, only to do the same again a few minutes later. He hated that he made her feel this way, hated if she was uncomfortable, hated himself for letting his pride get the better of him and for throwing those words at her.

“I’m sorry,” he said, the words ringing in the silence and into the darkness. He wouldn’t beg for forgiveness, not when it was something he didn’t deserve, but he wanted her to hear all the same. “I know it might not mean much now, but I’m sorry. For all of it. From the beginning, to now. I’m not good at any of this, not at playing this game, not at pretending, not even this part of it.” 

Sansa stirred beside him, and he knew she was listening even if she stayed silent.

“I won’t make myself your problem any longer. I’ll find other arrangements tomorrow,” he said. “And once these snows stop for good, I’ll be on my way.” 

Sansa turned to face him. “What do you mean?” 

“You don’t have to make it your concern,” he said. “I’ll—I’ll…” 

“There is nowhere else,” Sansa said. “Where are you planning to go? Sleep in the crypts, or the broken tower? Wander away like men used to do? Tell me, if you still wish to go south, how do you even intend to find the king’s road?” 

“I don’t know,” he said, flustered by the accuracy of her presumptions and feeling his temper rising again. “It’s better than sitting here wasting away.” 

She gave a sharp laugh. “So that’s what you’ve been doing here this whole time?”

He cringed as he remembered the way Sansa smiled at him whenever he stood at her side distributing foodstuffs and clothing, how she had invited him once more to share her hearth and her stories with him, the feel of her in his arms as he carried her through the snow, and his words just became more he wished he could take back. 

“All right, then it’s at least certainly better than sleeping the night beside someone who detests my mere presence,” he said, sitting up and gathering himself and his furs together. He didn’t care where he went anymore, as long as it put him out of this misery. 

“I don’t want you to leave!” She reached out, and her palm collided with his chest.

He paused, his heart pounding beneath her hand, beneath his scars. “What do you want?” 

It was dark in their chambers, dark and silent and too hot and utterly suffocating, and yet none of that mattered as Sansa’s lips seared against his. 

 

 

Three days. Three days they went about their business as usual while out and about, and when they returned to their chambers, they kissed every night since the first. Three days Jon carried around this sense of secret exhilaration and incredible bliss as he shoveled and hauled and helped. Three nights he had spent with Sansa in his arms, Sansa sprawled across his lap in front of the fire, Sansa pressed against him beneath the furs. 

It was better this way, when they didn’t have to talk. There was no danger of his words getting misconstrued, no room for quarreling, no need for apologies or confessions. Instead he proved how he felt with gentle touches and soft sighs and hushed affections. Each time their lips met he felt alive again, truly, in the way he had before daggers in the dark and battling the dead and mountains of snow had drained him. Every nerve of his body came alight when he touched her, when he heard her gasps, when he tasted wine on her tongue. 

He still cursed the bloody snows, but only because they tore him away from Sansa. He would have been most content to spend the entirety of his day kissing her… or at least that was what he told himself to temper his most base desires. It still had its benefits, though. Tonight he had returned to their chambers, and Sansa offered to massage his sore muscles. She’d insisted she couldn’t grip properly with his tunic on, so he’d stripped it off, and then things had devolved into this. 

Now Sansa laid atop him, warmer than any furs could ever be, and softer too, her skin smelling of rose oil and citrus from her earlier bath. Her dressing gown had come undone as they tangled together, parting to reveal the expanse of her chest, where she flushed red all the way down to the laced neckline of her shift that scarcely managed to conceal the swell of her breasts. There was hardly time to admire, though, because he felt his thigh slip between Sansa’s legs, and then she began to move. 

He groaned at the friction, his cock straining against the laces of the breeches he’d taken to wearing to bed, begging for her to rub against it instead. If only he moved her a bit to the left… No. He didn’t dare; he wasn’t sure if he could avoid spending like a green boy and making a fool of himself if they continued in that manner. As it was, he could already feel her hot and damp through the few layers that separated them. He let Sansa grind against him, reveling in her little gasps and the way her nails scraped against his skin as she steadied herself on his chest, sliding his hands down her back until he gripped her hips to encourage her on. 

“Jon, I…” she panted, quickening her pace before slowing again, changing her angle, and then shifting once more, frustration reflected on her pretty face as she writhed against him in pursuit of release. “I don’t know if I can…” 

He rolled, flipping over so Sansa stretched beneath him. She was pliant, supple, as he laid her back on the bed, contrasting with his body, hard and rigid as he hovered, careful not to lean his weight on her. “Is this all right?”

“You’re sharing my bed,” she said, offering him a smile he would have found sweet at any other moment. It only served to heat his blood in this one. “Of course it is. I trust you.” 

“I would never presume,” he said, meaning every word even as he attempted to direct his focus away from how her nearly bare breasts pressed against his naked chest. 

“You said yourself there are a thousand eyes in Winterfell who look at their lady like they wish to have my hand, so if that’s the case, I don’t expect any of them would hesitate to share my bed,” she said, her voice lilting in the kind of tease he’d always loved to share with her. 

“I believe I said they wished for something else of yours which I care not to repeat,” he muttered. 

She rolled her eyes. “Do you think I should have chosen one of them instead? Would you like your pallet back and another to lay in your place?” 

“No, I—” And it became clear in that very second that he never could have permitted that, for Sansa leave Winterfell, for Sansa to marry, whether he was king or not, brother or not, snow or not. He involuntarily shifted his hips against her, where he was hard and she was hot. “No. I rather like my place. And I’d quite like to keep it.” 

Sansa resumed their kisses, hers deeper and more desperate than before as she let her hands stray down his back to the waist of his breeches. 

“Do you trust me?” he asked, primarily for his own peace of mind, just as he had that one night that felt a hundred years past now, when he’d asked for her to hold faith in him. When Sansa nodded, he tore himself away and kissed his way downward, first letting his tongue slide down her neck, then his lips across her chest, and over the soft fabric of her shift that covered her belly. 

He reached the point where her shift ended and the smooth skin of her long, long legs that bracketed him began. Edging up the hem of her shift, he slowly slid her smallclothes off, baring her to him. It seemed both strange at once to see her like this after sharing chambers for so long, and yet not strange one bit given how often he’d yearned to share this with her. 

Sansa’s eyes flitted between his face and his intended destination, watching him with anticipation, her bottom lip caught between her teeth. She was beautiful in that moment, as always, and he would have certainly been content to admire her like that forever, but he also wanted to see her eyes fluttered shut with pleasure, hear his name on her lips, feel her silky against his fingers and tongue. 

He looked away for just long enough to guide his fingers between her legs, letting them gently swipe over her before he slid one inside and glanced up again to gauge her reaction. Already one of his wishes had been fulfilled, as Sansa rested on her elbows, her eyes closed, her head tilted back, and her lips parted, each of her breathy exhales making him wish he could be in two places at once. He pushed a second finger into her and stifled a groan when he felt her grip around him in response, tight and wet, and he moved in and out, increasing his pace until she thrust upward to meet his hand and match his rhythm, and then he bent and swiped his tongue over her. 

Sansa yelped at the first contact, and he paused until she relaxed against him again, continuing with a few languid strokes while he waited for her to become accustomed to the sensation. He’d been mistaken if he thought this would have been any easier on him than her rubbing against him. As it was, he suspected he was thoroughly embarrassing himself now as he thrust against the bed in vain, seeking any kind of relief for his aching cock while Sansa arched against him, tasting sweeter than any honey or Arbor gold he could imagine.

Her fingers tugged at his hair, and she trembled beneath his attentions. He slipped his free hand up her waist to hold her to him, and she curled one of hers around it. It wasn’t the first time he’d held her as she shook like that, but he pushed the memories of the other times away, not wanting them to mar this the way they’d destroyed so much else. Instead he focused on how it was exhilarating to know this time she reacted because of him and not some terror, that even after all of that, she had still trusted him enough for this. 

He wished he could see her expression, that he could use his own words, however muddled they were, to urge her on, but he could feel her growing slicker and tighter, until she peaked squeezing around his fingers. He’d grown used to hearing as though through a fog, every sound muffled by snow, drowned out by the constant rustle of the castle, interrupted by the crackle of fire, and all that served to make Sansa’s cries even sweeter to hear.

That was how they continued as it snowed on, by day the Lady of Winterfell and the Warden of the North who protected and served the people of their realm, while by night he brought her pleasure as many times as she wished. 

 

 

The worst day or the best day, depending on how you looked at it, Jon supposed, came when he headed downstairs to complete his morning shoveling, and the door to the courtyard would not budge more than a single fingerbreadth. He threw his weight against it, trying to shoulder it open, kick it open, pry it open with the metal edge of his shovel, all to no avail, except to douse him with snow when a particularly violent gust blew some through the tiny crack he prised open. He went from door to door, only to discover snow blocked every path leading away from the keep, making every route impassible, and when he found he couldn’t go anywhere at all, not even to the Great Hall or out to the kitchens, he trudged back to their chambers. 

He returned rumpled, sweaty, and frustrated to find Sansa waiting for him, the fire roaring in the grate. When he’d left in utter darkness at the break of dawn she’d still been asleep, buried under the furs, marking this as the first time he saw her properly this morning, or perhaps at all, he wasn’t sure anymore, the heat making his head buzz, melding his mind. With the way the light fell, he could see through her nipples through the sheer fabric of her shift, the curve of her waist, her lack of smallclothes, and he nearly entirely forgot about the predicament outside, forgot about why he’d ever wanted to leave these chambers in the first place. 

He cleared his throat, but it did little to help with the rumble of his voice. “Are you planning to dress for breakfast? Don’t bother.” 

“I wasn’t.”

“We won’t be able to—the snow…” His words faltered completely as she stepped towards him, the kind of desire reflected back in her eyes that he’d suppressed since this bloody snow madness business had begun, since they’d reclaimed Winterfell together, since he’d taken her into his arms at Castle Black, if he were honest with himself. 

She didn’t look away as she stopped just short of his reach, and then she let her dressing gown fall to the floor before slipping the straps of her shift off her shoulders, sliding it slowly down the rest of her body until it pooled on the floor. As Sansa undressed, color seemed to return to the world, her red hair glinting gold in the firelight, her blue eyes glittering, her tongue gleaming pink as she licked over her lips to wet them. 

He watched as Sansa turned away and slipped naked beneath the furs, and before he knew it, before he gave himself a moment to think, he strode towards the bed, tearing off his gloves, his cloak, his jerkin and tunic, his thick wool breeches, and tripping out of his boots along the way. 

Desire swirled inside him like the storm outside as he joined Sansa abed. Somewhere the dwindling sane part of him knew wind whistled through the smallest cracks in the stone and outside ice creaked, that within the castle ever-present laughter and cries of babes and shouts carried on, but in that moment he was not aware of it, not aware of anything except for how utterly gorgeous Sansa looked with her hair sleep tousled and her lips rubbed red from their kisses, how perfect she felt as he wrapped his arms around her and pressed the entirety of his body up against hers. 

Sansa giggled as she swiped melted snowflakes from his cheeks and when he shook them out of his hair, their coolness contrasting with the heat of their kissing, but soon her giggles turned to gasps as he rocked against her. He may have always been too hot in their chambers, but he craved this kind of warmth, both the way she flushed at his attentions now and otherwise, and also how she smiled at him, how she allowed him to close the way she permitted few. Each and every time those reminders of her affection made him feel alive again, and he poured passion into each of his kisses.

“I want you,” Sansa whispered, and they were the most beautiful words he’d ever heard, better than the pride he’d felt when he’d said his Night’s Watch vows and joined their ranks as a man, better than when he’d been honored by the gift of Longclaw or named Lord Commander, better than an entire hall of northern lords chanting for him to be their king.

He slipped inside her with a groan, thrusting shallowly at first until Sansa tilted her hips up to meet his, and then pushing deeper and deeper until he was buried in her hot, wet cunt. Sansa clenched around him, and he grunted at the effort it took to hold back. He’d thought about this moment more times than he would ever admit, but he promised himself if he ever had a chance like this with Sansa, he’d concern himself entirely with her pleasure. 

“Are you…?” 

“It’s all right,” she said, pressing her hands to his lower back and wrapping her legs so tightly around his waist he thought he might have a few new bruises to join the marks that already marred his chest. His body needed little encouragement to move, all too eager to feel the way she fluttered around his length, all too elated to hear Sansa’s sighs against his cheek. 

He found himself torn between kissing Sansa and admiring the view of her stretched beneath him, her hair fanned out across the pillow, how her breasts fit just right in his hands, the way her mouth quirked and her eyes drifted closed when he slid one hand down to where they joined. He started light and slow, gradually increasing the pace and matching his rhythm to it until Sansa seemed to forget any sense of propriety, tugging at her hair and his, writhing wantonly against him, even uttering a few rather obscene words intermixed with his name before she clasped around him and finally came with a cry so delicate and impassioned he swore he’d remember it for all his days. 

He waited for her ease down from her peak before he considered giving in to his, the pressure becoming nearly unbearable now that Sansa felt slicker than ever. She somehow managed to look even more beautiful than before with how she practically glowed, gazing up at him with tender eyes and something that looked like adoration, that he didn’t dare call love but his heart wanted to all the same. 

His cock twitched in impatience, as though he could possibly forget how agonizingly hard he still was, and Sansa gasped, thrusting up against him again in response.

“Sansa, I’m—” She stiffened when he tried to pull away to spill on her belly, or in his hand, or on the furs, or anywhere else. “I don’t think I should…” 

“You should,” she said simply, and she swiveled her hips until he didn’t have a choice in the matter anymore, the rational part of his brain silenced by the feeling of how they moved together, how they fit so perfectly. 

She held him to her as he spilled, and after too, until their breathing slowed, until the fire began to die and he rose to stoke the coals and replenish the logs in the grate. When he returned, Sansa greedily took him beneath the furs once more, and they found another way to keep warm until the flames filled their chambers with heat and warmth again, this time Sansa finding her release atop him. 

They spent the rest of the day abed, making love, and the one after that, and the next one too, and even when the snow cleared after nearly a sennight had passed, he was still wroth to leave their chambers. 

 

 

The endless snows moved on, and life as they’d grown acclimated to resumed. Jon still went out to shovel morning, noon, and night, but as the snows waned, it became less and less, and gradually the mounds began to disappear as the sun poked through the clouds on occasion, and the courtyard could be traversed once again. Sansa continued on with her rounds to visit their guests, take stock of the stores, and tend to the sick while her attention began to turn to matters of what would happen when winter passed, her time filled with talks of rebuilding the houses that had been lost, leading the free folk who longed to go home back beyond the Wall, and settling the Gift with those who wished to stay in the North. 

In the moments in between, though, whenever they had the chance to return to their chambers or a minute alone, Jon made Sansa his again and again, and he became hers in turn, his love for her only deepening as they grew more comfortable with one another’s touch and enjoyed each other’s kisses. And then there were the other times, times that made him think about what the future held, as they fell into the familiar pattern of running a household together again or he joined Sansa as the children in the Great Hall gathered to hear her stories. 

He managed to hold it all inside until one night he couldn’t anymore, not when he wondered what the end of winter would bring, not when he couldn’t imagine leaving Winterfell, not when he wanted nothing more than to be here like he was now, wrapped in Sansa’s embrace as their kiss grew more heated, her tongue sliding against his. 

He pulled away panting, and before Sansa could carry on, he blurted her name. 

She smiled up sweetly at him, and for the thousandth time he wondered if he’d paid his dues, if he’d done enough to deserve her. If it were up to him, there would be little more to this than a trip to the heart tree, the exchange of a few simple words, and then a return to their chambers for a bedding behind closed doors, but he thought Sansa might expect a bit more than that. 

“Sansa, if we make it to the end of this winter… I want you to be mine. I want this, I want us. I’ve thought about it… marrying, in the godswood, beneath the eyes of gods and men…” He was babbling and he knew it, but he didn’t bother to care because it was all true. “I want everyone to know… and we’ll tell Bran and Arya…” 

His worry was alleviated, though, when she smiled again. “I think they already know. Or at least Bran does.” 

He’d forgotten about that particular ability of his brother’s, or perhaps just put it out of mind while he’d been distracted by the kinds of things he would have been horrified for their siblings to have seen. 

“I asked him a long time ago not to watch us,” she reassured him. “At least never to pay witness to anything like that.” 

He nodded in relief, and his worries continued to abate when Sansa resumed their kiss and whispered how she’d imagined the same, a wedding in the godswood surrounded by the green of spring and beneath the blue sky, a dress she’d sew herself, a cloak in their own colors for her to keep. And then she spoke of the after, of how she wished for him to take her name, of ruling the North together, of a shy mention of children, and he groaned as words failed him yet again and rather than blithering on, he showed just how much he loved her. 

 

 

When the snows cleared from the sky for good, it did not fill with dragons instead. Ravens did not flock to the rookery beckoning him south, and the Golden Company did not show up outside their walls. After the fierce winds and the constant creak of splitting of ice, Winterfell seemed quiet, peaceful as the snow melted, saturating the ground as the trees blossomed and plants sprouted. The snows faded into memory, and Jon wondered if with time they would become a part of legend, like Bran the Builder and the magic of Valyria.

Sometimes Jon entertained the idea that this all had been the will of the old gods, and every once in awhile he caught Bran’s knowing look, causing him to suspect maybe he’d conjured this somehow with ravens or whatnot, but even if that was the truth he didn’t want to know. Either way, their blessings abounded, and every time they were given one, he thanked those snows. 

He thanked them the night Sansa agreed to be his wife, and nine moons later too, when spring arrived in full swing at last and babes conceived during the snows filled Winterfell, and he wed her beneath the heart tree with a crown of blue winter roses in her hair. 

He thanked them when Sansa took his hand and placed it upon her belly, and again when he heard the first cry of their son, and once more when his newborn daughter curled her tiny hand around his finger, and each time he first held one of their children in his arms. 

Even when summer stretched long and he grumbled about the heat and wondered if he would ever see snow again covering Winterfell’s walls, he thanked them. However long summer lasted, it made no matter.

Winter would forever be theirs.


End file.
